Bloglette: Men Talk

Guy Talk

Where have I been? Stupid work leaves me no time to write an authentic Daily Affirmation, which means I've profoundly misplaced my life priorities. Still NO TIME to write the usual insightful harangue, err, analysis.

So instead I want to just toss out something I intended to leave as a comment on the excellent She's Come Undone blog. Ultimately it proved too off topic and rambling for that purpose. Shocking, I know. But that just means its right at home here.

Talk amongst yourselves: a woman has to listen to men's conversations every day, and their topics surprise her. I don't know for sure, see below, but I'm just guessing this overheard male conversation isn't all relationship talk or what's the meaning of life talk or feelings talk or is little Johnny experiencing a self-actualized childhood at home talk or do I have a sufficiently contemporary hairstyle talk or what happened on the Bachelor last night talk or do these suede shoes go with these skinny jeans talk. Just a guess. I don't know.

Reactionary Guy stuck in the '70s Reaction:

Well, I have been a man for roughly 49 years (probs more like 35 years, with a 14 year apprenticeship). I've never thought men actually have conversations with other men. At least, I've never encountered one. Maybe I don't know enough "millennial" or whatever young hipster d-bags are called now. But as far as I've ever seen, men only have conversations with women. That's why you have woman friends, right? And to hope she'll introduce you to her hot friends...I've heard. Men will also have conversations with their fathers. Or brothers. But no one else.

Men will talk to other men, of course, but only to top one another's stories ("oh, dude, that's lame, listen to what I did LAST weekend!), quotes from the right movies ("So I jump ship in Hong Kong, and make my way over to Tibet...."), predict future game scores or election results, outdo each other's jokes, run down someone's favorite candidate or sports team, bag on some other guy ("listen to what that a-hole did now"), or have an object judging contest (who has the best BBQ grill, car, lawnmower, girlfriend, etc.).

Or we'll talk in great detail about one mundane thing (the ball game) to avoid talking about something else you probably should talk about but don't want to (like why are you cheating on your wife).

Basically, male "conversations" are just verbal competition.

Attempts at actual conversation inevitably turn into problem solving: "Oh, I know, buy her TWO dozen roses." Things you will never hear most men say to each other: (1) "So how did that make you feel?" (2) "How's your relationship with [insert wife/girlfriend name here].

City Slickers was generally a lame movie (oh, sorry for the bad transition), but one passage really illustrates how this works. On the cattle drive, the guys frequently talk about baseball. This irritates jilted Helen Slater (BTW, what idiot would ditch her?) so she asks why they talk so much about baseball. She has this really incredible exchange with the now sadly deceased Bruno Kirby :

Ed: What do you and your friends talk about?
Bonnie: Real life. Relationships...are they working, are they not? Who's she seeing, is that working?
Ed: Its no contest. We win.
Bonnie: Why?
Ed: Honey, if that were as interesting as baseball, they'd have cards for it and sell it with gum.

Exactly.

So, there are no "men's conversations." Thank God.

NEXT-if I can ever get to it, the Daily Affirmations 2013 Year In Review

Whither Austin, Part Two: Andi Sloane

Andi Sloane

Many of you may have heard of Ms. Sloane. She was a tough cancer survivor, who spent her career helping others with legal problems. Recently she made headlines for fighting against BioMarin's lack of a "compassionate use policy" that would have provided her breakthrough drug treatment against her reoccurring cancer. She passed away just yesterday. Ms. Sloane inspired many of my friends and others, who joined "Andi's Army" to help her and others fight this scourge.

Hoping you'll take a little time to read and take away that much still remains to be done in the fight against cancer.

Prayers and condolences to her friends and family.

From KXAN TV's web site:

AUSTIN (KXAN) - After a seven-year battle with cancer, Andrea Sloan passed away on Wednesday evening.
In a Facebook post to the Andi's Army page, Sloan's mother, Karen Sloan, said her daughter died after complications brought on by pneumonia.
Sloan was diagnosed with ovarian cancer seven years ago, at age 37. When her cancer returned in August, Sloan asked California-based drug manufacturer, BioMarin, to grant her compassionate use of their experimental drug, BMN 673, developed specifically to fight her type of genetic ovarian cancer, as well as genetic, or BRCA 1, breast cancer.
But BioMarin repeatedly denied Sloan the drug, citing concerns about safety and effectiveness.

• The Andrea Sloan Saga: Full coverage

BMN 673 is one of nearly a dozen in a class of drugs called PARP inhibitors currently in clinical trials. Sloan's doctors at MD Anderson believe this class of drugs is her best hope, since all other traditional treatments have been exhausted. But BioMarin would not grant Sloan compassionate use, even though their drug is headed in to Phase 3 trials and has been highly touted by company executives for its results in the first two phases of clinical trials.
Sloan and her doctors fought publicly for access to the drug through compassionate use, since she met all of the criteria required by the Food and Drug Administration. The compassionate use system allows patients who meet the requirements access to promising medicine even before all of the clinical trials are complete.
Behind the scenes, Sloan and her physicians were exploring other avenues, as it became clear BioMarin would not grant her access to their drug. In October, they learned another drug manufacturer agreed to grant compassionate use of their experimental PARP inhibitor to Sloan.
Sloan and her physician at MD Anderson, Dr. Charles Levenback, wanted to reform the compassionate use system for other patients. She amassed a large social media following in her campaign to gain compassionate use. An online petition has garnered more than 180,000 signatures supporting her cause.
Sloan was the director of the Texas Advocacy Project where she provided free legal advice for victims of domestic violence.

Whither Austin, Part One

Hipsters prowling Sixth Street

Well, the era of good feelings had to end some time.

I posted something on Facebook that actually received praise, and upon reflection, I think it pretty accurately captures the state of my town. And for all you wanting shorter posts, your time has come.

This responded to a South Austin friend lamenting that so many "unrecognizable neighbors" had moved into our beloved 78704, also known as Ground Zero for the "Keep Austin Weird" lifestyle.

"Neighbors becoming unrecognizables"? I assume you mean skinny jeans-wearing, non-corrective glasses having, fair trade espresso-drinking, bedhead-sporting MF-ers? Yeah, that's happening. Its like one year, the SXSW people just decided never to go home, and they inbred with the Formula One people. The resulting doucheosity is devouring our town. [Sad panda]

NEXT-something a little less "you kids get off my yard!"